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God’s Affirmation

Scripture Reading: 1Peter 5:10 (NIV) And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.

I am overloaded with blessing today because of the many truths in this one verse. In order to be brief, please enjoy a bulleted format of connecting points today. Choose the one or several that best fit your needs today.

All grace is from God, and God gives grace generously. His grace is sufficient for every need. His grace has conquered sin and death (Romans 5:20-21). Every suffering, every trial, and every difficulty is yet another opportunity to experience the grandeur of God’s grace as He sustains us and supplies our every need. Our sinful flesh deserves the suffering. Our suffering Savior is God’s gift of grace that calls us to eternal fellowship and glory. Each hardship is God’s activity to reveal His glory and strengthen our bond with Him.

Suffering is temporary – the glory to which we have been called is eternal. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. My friends, please take time to read this entire passage of Scripture in 2 Corinthians 4:6-18.

God Himself is affirming me. This is my personal connecting point for today. When I used to be in business, it was nice to get words of affirmation from my manager, and then from my district manager, but I will never forget the time I got a call from the owner of the company. When the person responsible for the bottom line calls, it means more. The LORD your God is with you, he is mighty to save. He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing.” (Zephaniah 3:17)

God Himself will deliver the grace you need to accomplish four things:

He will restore you. The Greek word means to render fit, sound, and complete; to put things in order. God is personally setting all things in order in your life so you are fully equipped to do His work. (Hebrews 13:20-21)

He will make you strong. This is the only place in the entire New Testament where this word appears. It is probably derived from the same root word used in Ephesians 6:10 where Paul tells us to be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might so that we can stand against all the attacks of our enemy the devil. God Himself is providing all the strength you need to resist the devil and stand strong in the midst of all trouble.

God Himself will make you firm. He will establish you. He will make you stable. Stability is not a pipe dream. It is a reality for all who live wisely, recognizing that wisdom comes from God alone through our faith in Jesus Christ. God is the personal source of stability. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does. (James 1:5-8).

God will make you steadfast. The Greek word here refers to the placing of a solid foundation upon which anything can be built. That foundation is Jesus Christ, the Rock of our salvation. This same word is used to describe the three building materials of a solid foundation.

Hope – established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. (Col. 1:23)

Love – And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:17-19)

God Himself will provide for you. God Himself affirms you. God Himself is at work in you. Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen. (Ephesians 3:20-21)